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German sprint ace Andre Greipel won again at the Tour de France after his team chased down a break involving Orica-GreenEDGE rider Michael Albasini.
Greipel outsprinted likely green jersey winner Peter Sagan at the end of a tough 217km transition stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Le Cap d’Agde on the Mediterranean coast.
It was Greipel’s third win in this Tour and the fourth of his career.
Defending champion Cadel Evans remains fourth overall, three minutes and 19 seconds behind yellow jersey holder Brad Wiggins.
The stage featured just one category-three climb with 24km left, but the Mont Saint Clair outside the coastal town of Sete was extremely steep in parts and technical.
The peloton splintered on the climb and Evans helped drive the pace.
Orica-GreenEDGE sprinter Matt Goss was one of the riders to drop off the pace, a day after a controversial penalty eliminated him from green jersey contention.
With Goss out of stage contention, Swiss rider Albasini joined Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov in a daring attack.
They went clear with 15km left, battling strong cross winds along the coast.
But their advantage never grew past 21 seconds and they were caught with 2km left.
“It was a bit of a bad situation, because when the group went we started to pull for Matt and he started to not feel so good,” Albasini said.
“We had to do something, it was the only thing after that steep climb.
“I felt good … so I took this chance to attack, it was the only thing could do.
“It was the best we could do.”
At 900m to go, Wiggins went to the front in an effort to lead out Sky team-mate Edvald Boasson Hagen and potentially grab the team’s fourth win of the Tour.
But Greipel and Sagan raced each other to the line.
In their first Tour, Australia’s Orica-GreenEDGE have managed every placing from second to seventh as they pursue their No.1 goal of a stage win.
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